How Would One Find Solace In Being Enslaved

The misconception that slave owners treated the enslaved well enough is willful madness

If you are truly stuck on oddly insensitive beliefs about the conditions and appropriacies of enslavement, ask yourself; Would you or your family and loved ones be willing or able to endure such a life lived with dignity intact?

In this Washington Post piece published 3 years ago, members of the King family traced their enslaved ancestors to a slaveowner named Thomas Griffith in the 19th century. The direct descendants of Griffith still own and live on the property in Montgomery County, Maryland where the cramped two-story log cabin cased the enslaved. It is an intriguing and riveting story that leaves you wondering what happened next but contextually since that was just 2019 and this is 2022, more or less things remain the same.

Two families - one black, one white - shared a harrowing history. Then they met.

What perplexed and really piqued me to write this was that the Beckers who is said to feel a mix of pride and shame about their family’s past seemed mostly aloof and unconcerned until this point about the enslaved humans who were forced to toil their lives away under slavery.

That is until these King family descendants’ daring, curiousness led them to explore their roots. The concern was approximal and brief having to confront their familial past in the proximity of the King family as they gave them a tour of the property where their enslaved ancestors subsisted. One of the more outspoken of the Becker family, Amanda led the tour and Frances, both who made these statements about the King’s visit.

“We wanted to apologize but we really can’t apologize, because we didn’t do it,” said Amanda, who lives in Pennsylvania, where she helps run her husband’s cemetery restoration business. “I don’t know if an apology would even mean anything to [the Kings] because we really should be apologizing to their ancestors.”

“We were just born here,” said Frances, who lives at the farmhouse with her father and sells vintage auto parts.

Apologizing to their ancestors would be an occult experience that would be newsworthy if it were all possible, and since…